Brian Loughnane

The Labor rout in Victoria is an undoubted victory for the Liberals, even though there was a possibility they would yet again come in second. It was at very least a huge morale boost.

Julia Gillard will end 2010 with one Labor bastion being pulled down and will start 2011 with the destruction of another —the NSW Government in March. Tony Abbott’s Liberals will have the momentum going their way. Well at least in a parallel fashion. The Victorian election was about state issues, and was not a federal test.

There was another boost for the Liberals, and that was the performance of their Victorian director, Tony Nutt, the former John Howard trooper and once the party director in NSW.

Continue reading "The Libs will be looking to spread some Victorian magic" »

In an age of texting, Tweeting and Facebooking it’s the Campaign 2010 version of a Jane Austen courtship – brimming with potential for misinterpretation, hurt feelings and cross purposes.

Instead of picking up the phone (so 2009) the National Director of the Liberal Party Brian Loughnane and the National Secretary of the ALP Karl Bitar have taken to firing off increasingly melodramatic letters to each other.

Between each line you can almost feel the building tension over tomorrow night’s proposed debate / people’s forum / Roman wrestling bout between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott in Brisbane.

Continue reading "Brian and Karl: A simmering courtship in letters" »